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Clear Channel CEO And MTV Co-Founder Bob Pittman On The Future Of Radio And Creativity

The tumultuous media world carries a whir of fear and uncertainty. Older generations bemoan the demise of newspapers and young journalists nervously ponder their slim job prospects. All the while, Aldous Huxley—or even Wall-E—instill in us a dread of crippled, technology-dependent societies.

Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman believes the opposite to be true. A seasoned media veteran who co-founded MTV and led several companies - AOLAOL Networks, Six Flags Theme Parks, QuantumQuantum Media, Century 21 Real Estate, and Time WarnerTime Warner Enterprises — Pittman said, “I love businesses where the product is better than the perception,” during an interview with Berlin School of Creative Leadership President Michael Conrad recently. Pittman said people often forget that Clear Channel has the widest reach of any TV and radio outlet in the country with more than 243 million listeners each month and more than one million outdoor advertising displays in more than 30 countries.

To manage it all, Pittman said he answers emails in the middle of the night and thinks in radio lingo. With an ever-expanding cultural curiosity, his worst fear is narrow-mindedness and mundane routine. He’s been working since he was 15, and believes that his greatest accomplishment is being open to new people.

His involvement in the world of radio and the iHeart radio brand has shown Pittman the value of the connected individual versus the connected home. For example, Pittman reminds us of our fear that technology and more devices would isolate the individual. As radio developed, people might have worried that they would stay at home because, heck, the radio delivers the information. Similarly, today, the drones might deliver the goods!

However, Pittman says that we discovered that instead of anchoring the individual inside at home, the increase in technology freed us to be more active. People want to stay connected while they travel, commute or exercise. Instead of isolating us, technology helps many people create new hobbies, build more relationships and explore the world.

During his interview with the Berlin School President Michael Conrad in the Miami Ad School’s inspiring loft-like space in DUMBO, Brooklyn on Jan. 30, Pittman shared several tips for current and future media mavens, entrepreneurs and moguls in dealing with turbulent times. Here are five takeaways:

1. Build strategic relationships. Although this is normally a given, Pittman points out that strategic relationships with stars like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney and One Direction frees iHeart to do a lot. “We’re [only] limited by our imagination” instead of the relationships, says Pittman.

Pittman strongly recommends being open. For iHeart, this meant relationships with big name brands—like Warner—as well as smaller labels—such as Big Machine Records, Taylor Swift’s label. Sometimes, artists emerged without a label, like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Radio companies invest mass amounts of research into curating the right blend of music and understanding how the segments interact with one another, says Pittman. He believes that creative flexibility of the music industry is positive and necessary.

2. Be a good partner. Pittman finds that partnering with other businesses instead of “eating” them or being envious of their profit is more beneficial in the long run. “Don’t look in a partner’s pocket,” he says. “If they don’t treat you well, you treat them well.” If you’re both succeeding, why should you care that your partner is succeeding too?

3. Create and cater to a tribe. IHeart radio has created a community online and started a conversation. They utilized social media to go beyond the brand and develop a loyal tribe. When a company is searching for a target audience, it should look among groups that have organically formed around similar beliefs. The results are often more effective than age and gender surveys. After a company has identified a tribe, it can position its brand as “the beat of the tribe.” Further, iHeart views “Facebook, Instagram, [and] Twitter as merely extensions of the ways we used to think about just the telephone.”4. Differentiate between streaming and music collections. Pittman describes an individual’s music collection as his “way of shutting out the world…a cone of soft protection.” No commercials or outside forces, the music is only in his control. Radio is the mirror opposite. We turn on the radio to be educated and understand what is happening in the world. Radio’s job is to keep society informed on a daily basis.

The new unit of music is a playlist instead of an album. More specifically, Pittman clarifies that Spotify and Pandora are categorized as music collections—because of the customizable playlists—while TuneIn is a radio station. “Although the press and the industry may talk about audio streaming together,” says Pittman, “they do so at their peril because if you operate music as one thing you will certainly fail.”

5. Brand yourself. Pittman’s radio experience heavily informed his interaction with other media. So when he came to MTV, he took his experience with marketing radio stations (such as Z-100, KISSFM, etc.) and experimented with TV branding. He watched as MTV evolved into its own brand, where it functioned much like a radio station: the audience tuned in to see what was showing.

Kara Bettis is a recent graduate of The King’s College in New York City, where she studied Media, Culture and the Arts. Find her on Twitter @whatakaracter

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